Skill Bite, activate!
Gradually, a pink-purple glow flowed along the fangs into Bai Jie's body, as though sweet rain had arrived after a prolonged drought. Vitality was reborn within, and subtle, marvelous changes quietly took place.
Its Vitality finally ceased dropping and even began to climb a breath later.
16, 17, 18... 24! It rapidly recovered to its peak state.
Zheng Yueling's situation, on the other hand, was dire. The electric arcs shrank substantially; the blue glow gradually receded; the pink-purple light in her eyes also approached annihilation.
At the same time, Bai Jie continuously used venom-laced spider silk to bind and stab, wearing down Zheng Yueling's life force.
She opened her bloodless lips slightly, as if to say something, but in the end, no sound came out.
When the light and vitality in her eyes vanished completely, Zheng Yueling wore an expression of release and relief.
Of course, Bai Jie did not see this.
Bai Jie's entire body was unbearably hot. At the same time, it was seized by an overwhelming wave of drowsiness.
[Conditions for species evolution satisfied. Evolution is about to begin.]
I need to evolve — I have to leave here immediately!
After confirming that Zheng Yueling no longer breathed, Bai Jie transformed into a black shadow, leaped over the windowsill, and without caring whether it might be seen along the way, sped back to its spider nest at top speed.
It felt too awful, too sleepy — it simply couldn't be bothered with anything else.
As it happened, Bai Jie's movement was indeed spotted by a person walking their dog in the residential complex.
Bai Jie's movement speed was so fast that the onlooker couldn't see clearly and merely thought it was a huge, large black rat, or perhaps a small dog, with golden patterns faintly shimmering on its surface.
"Finally back!"
Bai Jie immediately reinforced the perimeter of its nest with an additional layer of webbing. It was no exaggeration to call it an inescapable net.
The current spider nest was very safe.
Not to mention being situated at the top of a large tree with dense branches and leaves, shielded by both foliage and webbing, and surrounded mostly by low-rise detached villas, it was extremely hard to detect.
Even if discovered, ordinary cold weapons would struggle to cut through spider silk of its current tier. Even fire would take quite a while to burn through.
Even more crucially, Bai Jie had coated the silk strands erected on the outer layer with venom.
Should any living creature touch them, they'd be in for a world of suffering.
After checking once more that nothing was amiss nearby, Bai Jie impatiently relinquished control of its body, allowing it to undergo transformation in a wave of searing heat and tingling numbness, while its conscious awareness sank into slumber.
...
Opening its eyes, Bai Jie clearly knew it had not yet woken — it was within a dream.
Because no matter how it called, the Status Panel refused to appear, and there was no system notification sound.
I'm actually dreaming?
This was something that, since transmigrating into a spider, seemed never to have happened before.
Before Bai Jie's eyes unfolded a night sky studded with brilliant stars. Beneath the curtain of night stood the diverse, uniquely styled dorms and teaching buildings of Xingchuan University.
Suddenly, a dot of violet light twinkled in the night sky. At first it was extremely faint, then grew increasingly bright, continually expanding, drawing gasps of surprise from across the campus in waves.
Bai Jie suddenly recalled — this was the day the meteorite fell!
Not only had it witnessed the meteorite falling with its own eyes, it had even dreamed the day before of pink-purple aurora hanging in the night sky.
At the time it had thought it a coincidence. Now, in hindsight, it was probably something along the lines of telepathy, prophetic dreams — an extraordinary event.
Abruptly, the scene before its eyes shifted.
Bai Jie saw a familiar room. This place was... Zheng Yueling's home?!
Why would I dream of her?
It was likewise nighttime. Under the faint glow of a dim light, Zheng Yueling, dressed in sleepwear, walked into the bathroom and began filling the bathtub with water.
Just as Bai Jie thought she was about to undress and bathe, a dagger appeared in her hand — and then she proceeded to slice into her own wrist!
Question marks filled Bai Jie's mind.
Then, expressionless, Zheng Yueling stepped into the bathtub. Her almond eyes were dim as she let fresh crimson stream continuously from her wrist.
Only now did Bai Jie realize — the demon woman was attempting suicide.
Why would she do this? Is this a dream or a past event that actually happened? Thick confusion coiled around its heart.
Zheng Yueling's face grew paler and paler. Her lips were now completely bloodless.
Suddenly, blinding beams of pink-purple light shot in from outside the glass window. The night sky was lit up. People's exclamations rose. A ripple passed through Zheng Yueling's eyes — but she did not move.
Even an anomaly of this magnitude failed to rouse any desire in her to get up and look.
The next second, the eerie violet light abruptly flooded the entire bathroom. Even Bai Jie, as a spectator, was forced to squeeze its eyes shut from such close-up radiance.
Bai Jie wanted to strain to see what was happening inside the bathroom, but it was fruitless.
About ten-odd seconds passed like this before the violet light vanished from the bathroom, as if it had never appeared at all.
Bai Jie immediately looked toward Zheng Yueling with curiosity — and was so shocked it almost screamed the name of a certain plant.
The blood had disappeared, along with the wound on Zheng Yueling's wrist! Not even the slightest trace of a scar remained.
Even eerier was that Zheng Yueling's originally despairing eyes had regained their luster, now glittering brilliantly, with streaks of pink-purple light occasionally surfacing and sinking within...
Boom!
Bai Jie felt as if its brain had exploded. It suddenly recalled that before the meteorite fell, there had been campus chatter that Zheng Yueling was breaking up with her boyfriend, with the conflict seemingly irreconcilable.
Back then, Bai Jie had not yet joined the project team and wasn't familiar with Zheng Yueling.
Bai Jie was almost certain now — this was a memory Zheng Yueling herself had experienced.
Zheng Yueling had chosen suicide because of romantic setbacks?
...
By the time Bai Jie truly awoke, it was already high noon. This nap had lasted an exaggerated ten-plus hours.
Bai Jie's heart was filled with myriad thoughts and emotions. Regarding the meteorite's fall and Zheng Yueling's uncanny nature, it had formed some conjectures.
First, the meteorite that fell from the sky might have concealed some kind of organism within it, and the pink-purple glow was that organism. It was even possible the glow and the meteorite were one and the same.
The reason for believing it was an organism stemmed from the information Bai Jie had obtained the first time it used the system to investigate Zheng Yueling — the annotation "Symbiote" had appeared after her name.
Thus, the second point: Bai Jie believed that the eerie organism had parasitized Zheng Yueling.
But "parasitism" in the traditional sense might not be appropriate to describe the relationship between Zheng Yueling and that uncanny organism. Because by definition, a parasite-host relationship is one where one side benefits and the other suffers.
Therefore, the system had used the description "Symbiote," which led to the third conjecture.
Third, Zheng Yueling and the eerie violet light were mutually supportive, each achieving something through the other.
From the fact that Zheng Yueling had wanted to commit suicide and the eerie violet light had healed her wounds and granted her a host of transcendent abilities, this relationship was corroborated.
Fourth, it was very likely that Zheng Yueling's talk to Chen Zhang about "completing herself" was an operation carried out to satisfy the interests of that eerie violet light, thus triggering a series of disappearances.
"Right, rationality! The demon woman said she wanted to seize 'rationality' — what was that?"
Yet judging by what was known so far, countless questions remained unanswered.
For instance, why had a meteorite fragment appeared in Zheng Yueling's home? Where were the other fragments? Did the meteorite officially collected by the authorities really go missing?
Also, why had Agent Yao from the Criminal Investigation Department helped her? What other accomplices did she have?
Ah, this is way too complicated...
After thinking for a good while, Bai Jie shook its head and decided to focus on itself.
It had already shed a large patch of old skin and completed its evolution. Its Vitality had achieved a third leap.